Mistakes in books

[VictoryLap]

Almost every book I've read over the past few years has mistakes in it and it really annoys me! Anyone else?
I could understand if it was someone self publishing an ebook or something but these are Sunday Times Bestsellers etc. And not just one error, but multiple ones throughout.
I don't remember this happening so much several years ago or perhaps I am just more tuned in to it.

The Pillars of the Earth. I also rolled my eyes at the scene, and at almost every scene involving women afterwards.

@PlanktonsComputerWife yes! That's the one. I wonder has KF ever met a woman A lot of the events caused me to raise my eyebrows in disbelief!

I spotted one recently- in the latest Shardlake (Tombland) a minor character’s first name changes from Marcus to Richard!

Reading another old crime novel now where the corpse's name is Katie, but the investigating officer refers to her at least 50% of the time as Kate. It grates.

Name changes are one of the most common mistakes I see. Obviously as a manuscript goes through drafts, it’s easy for an author to miss a few changes. Unfortunately a lot of copy-editors seem to miss them too; I see a lot when I’m proofreading, by which stage they really should have been ironed out.

The most egregious error in Tombland is the woman’s body discovered with her ‘drawers’ visible. Ordinary women in Tudor England did not wear any kind of drawers, which is not that obscure a fact but then Sansom has clearly never done any research on costume, he just makes it up as he goes along, which is a shame when in other respects research is such a strong feature of his books.

@IntermittentParps

Name changes are one of the most common mistakes I see. Obviously as a manuscript goes through drafts, it’s easy for an author to miss a few changes. Unfortunately a lot of copy-editors seem to miss them too; I see a lot when I’m proofreading, by which stage they really should have been ironed out.

Easier now, I imagine, with search and replace, although as we all know that has to be used with great care.

Same book has Georgie turning up as George at least once and a reference to Saturday lunchtime immediately after a scene describing Sunday morning worship in the church. Sloppy, but this book was published over 40 years ago, so it's not a new phenomenon.

I can't remember which one but there was mention of a teddy bear in a story set in the early Victorian era!

That's a case of not knowing what you don't know, isn't it. Every time I've vaguely thought about trying to write historical fiction (never even tried! too lazy) one of the first problems I've thought about is that difficulty in getting all the details right.

@thistimelastweek

I am a regular library customer and I obviously have the same taste in books as a regular pedant.

I often come across books with pencilled corrections in the margins. As for perceived Americanisms...

It's very entertaining but I just hope the library staff don't think it's me writing all over the books.

That could be me. I pencil in corrections. Going forward, I am going to log the details and contact the publisher.

I listen to a lot of audio books and pronunciation is a big issue. I once commented on Twitter to say that it was only when I heard an audio clip of The Mercies, that I realized I had been pronouncing all the names wrong in my head - and the author commented that she had too!

Stella Duffy wrote a fill in Ngaio Marsh where someone says "must of", which really frustrated me. It was speech, so there is no excuse of the "the character wouldn't know" type. Really poor!

Easier now, I imagine, with search and replace, although as we all know that has to be used with great care.

You’d think it’d be easier, but I see a worrying number of name inconsistencies; I can only assume the copy-editors in question do not think to check for them. I don’t know why, as looking for/ ironing out inconsistencies is a basic requirement of the job.
Then again, as I say above, I think fewer and fewer editorial staff in-house know to look for or recognise this sort of sloppy work, so substandard copy-editors continue to be given work. Depressingly.

@PenCreed

Stella Duffy wrote a fill in Ngaio Marsh where someone says "must of", which really frustrated me. It was speech, so there is no excuse of the "the character wouldn't know" type. Really poor!

Stella Duffy is great. I am going to defend this on the basis that it was speech and in both the UK and NZ, a lot of people do distinctly say "must of."

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Reading another old crime novel now where the corpse's name is Katie, but the investigating officer refers to her at least 50% of the time as Kate. It grates.

That might not be a traditional ‘mistake’ as in the author forgot if she was Kate or Katie. In my experience with names like that people will change it as they please, so you’ll say ‘I’m Katie’ and they’ll say ‘cool hi Kate.’ Like more of an unwanted shortening than a mistake. Same with George/Georgie, it could be interchangeable more than an editing mistake.

I agree with the person who doesn't like names that belong to the wrong age group. I've noticed this with a lot of a different authors recently. I'm currently reading my way through Stuart MacBride's detective stories and he is very prone to it - more often younger people having oldish names than the other way round. There's a serving police officer called Doreen (I don't know a single Doreen in real life who is under 80) and there have been several young lads called things like Frank. I think in one of them there was an old man called Gary, but it's possible he was meant to be a drug addict who just seemed old because he'd abused his body so much.

But chicklit does it too. I read some modern romance recently which was utterly forgettable except that the central character was a woman in her 30s called Lola. That just doesn't ring true for me.

@Changingtheweather

Impoverished housemaid shivering in an attic during WW1. Gets up to investigate strange noise. Pulls on pair of tights. Jolts into present and stops reading Don’t care that it’s just light fiction, you have to be able to believe it Pedantic and proud

I read a book with that error; it might have been the same book.

Like a pp, if i'm reading on my Kindle I will report errors.

I recently read a book where the main character was warned he might not be able to get a table in a restaurant as it was Fathers Day - but the book had a specific timeline, which started in July. I might email the publisher.

Argh! This is my nightmare thread.

I'm an author and normally don't do any research when I'm writing my first draft. I will have done something basic beforehand, but normally my books don't require anything very detailed anyway. The reason I don't research as I go along is because I would use it as an excuse to procrastinate and suck up time rather than writing. And as it may not find a publisher anyway.....

But on this basis my copy editor just queried something MAJOR in my next book that I'd completely forgotten about. I'm still waking up at night in cold sweats thinking about the horror if it had made it through!

At that point the book had been through my agent, around seven drafts from me, two editors and their two edits (structural and line edits). NONE of us had spotted the error.

"This irritates me a lot more than it should. Adult women in books set in the present day being called little-girl names like Evie/Ava/Lexi when in reality they’d be called Sarah, Emma etc."

I disagree with this - to start with, if you're talking about adult women aged between 18 and 100, there's a big age range there - 82 years, and up to 5 generations. Then there are influences from different cultures etc.

Lexi is short for Alexandra - in my family there are two, aged roughly 32 and 7. Shortened to Alex rather than Lexi. Family of family also includes a Sandy in my parents generation/age band, and that might well be short for Alexandra. It's also a name that's common across different cultures as either a main name or an English name (in families who give kids names from more than one culture), and I've met women with versions of the name from Argentina and Nigeria.

I also know an Ava in her 40s, and if anything I'd expect it to be quite common among women slightly older than my friend. They could be named after the film star Ava Gardner.

Evie could be a diminutive of Evelyn, Eve or Eva. It's another name which might well be used in a variety of cultures - English, Irish, western, central and eastern Europe. I wouldn't think anything of meeting a woman of any age called Evie And there are lots of names that started as a diminutive of a more formal name but have been given as names in their own right - Sally (Sarah), Jenny, Polly, Molly (both Mary), Sasha (could be Alexandra or Sarah).

Was the Father's Day mistake book set in the UK? If so, I'd email. But the day is celebrated on different dates in different countries. In Australia and NZ, it's September.

@curioushorse amazing work by that copyeditor. I bet she really loved the book, btw.

I have just noticed this spine on one of DD's Egyptian books.

I've worked mostly in local government where we would call colleagues by first names but there's a convention in meetings of referring to councillors as, say, Cllr Smith rather than John. I would refer to my colleagues and people in other departments I worked with a lot by first names, but I would use Mr etc for councillors and people ringing up and I wouldn't assume it was ok to call someone by her/his first name. I temped in the Civil Service in the mid to late 90s a couple of times and they really did still use Mr X quite a bit.

Good grief!

@Curioushorse

Argh! This is my nightmare thread.

I'm an author and normally don't do any research when I'm writing my first draft. I will have done something basic beforehand, but normally my books don't require anything very detailed anyway. The reason I don't research as I go along is because I would use it as an excuse to procrastinate and suck up time rather than writing. And as it may not find a publisher anyway.....

But on this basis my copy editor just queried something MAJOR in my next book that I'd completely forgotten about. I'm still waking up at night in cold sweats thinking about the horror if it had made it through!

At that point the book had been through my agent, around seven drafts from me, two editors and their two edits (structural and line edits). NONE of us had spotted the error.

This is totally standard!

And totally standard that a reader will see it when it’s too late…

Extra gift for copy-editor - I assure you they will love you for it, though it’s no more than their job. The authors who are brilliant are not the ones who write ‘brilliant’ novels, they’re the ones who can be human at the same time.

@PlanktonsComputerWife

Was the Father's Day mistake book set in the UK? If so, I'd email. But the day is celebrated on different dates in different countries. In Australia and NZ, it's September.

@curioushorse amazing work by that copyeditor. I bet she really loved the book, btw.

I have just noticed this spine on one of DD's Egyptian books.

HOW did that make it into print?!

Agree about the titles thing. Although it happens in RL too - I work in the civil service and answer to a Lord Minister. He's not one of the hereditary peers so should be referred to as Lord Smith. The number of people (quite senior stakeholders too) who refer to him as Lord John Smith which apparently makes him the younger son of a Duke is astonishing. He gets quite het up about it!